Black Friday is still a few weeks away, but several retailers have already begun rolling out some excellent deals worth checking out this weekend. For example, our top deal this weekend is the inaugural discount on the Asus ROG Ally, knocking $80 off the speedy handheld PC at Best Buy. Some other noteworthy deals include a pair of Humble bundles, a sizeable discount on the Xbox Elite Series 2 controller, and some personal favorites from my board game library.
Fall of the House of Usher lets the real villains off the hook
17.10.2023 - 14:31 / polygon.com / Stanley Kubrick
Mike Flanagan didn’t start his storytelling career on Netflix, but it is where he found his voice. Starting with The Haunting of Hill House, Flanagan has created, written, and directed increasingly personal and complicated series for the streaming service. Each show, from The Haunting of Bly Manor to Midnight Mass, is an exploration of an ensemble cast’s dark shadows through ghoulish jump scares and an endless string of monologues.
But while Flanagan has always excelled at using his characters to explore existential questions about death and faith,The Fall of the House of Usher, his latest and last series for Netflix, is his first real attempt to move beyond personal darkness and take on larger societal ills. It is his biggest, most ambitious show; it’s often even his most impressive. But it’s also far and away his worst.
[Ed. note: This story contains spoilers for The Fall of the House of Usher.]
An extremely loose adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe short story, The Fall of the House of Usher follows the Usher family, most specifically the siblings at the head of it, Roderick (Bruce Greenwood) and Madeline (Mary McDonnell), as their family and pharmaceutical empire crumbles around them. Before their recent fall from the top, a scandal-filled week that also saw each of the family’s six heirs die tragically, the Ushers were one of the richest and most powerful families in the world, but also one of the most hated.
In typical Flanagan fashion, the story is told through a frame narrative: an aging Roderick Usher taking us through his own rise and fall, all with the death toll of about one Usher scion per episode.
If there’s one thing that Flanagan has proven in his previous four shows and two movies at Netflix (and his Doctor Sleep movie, which came in the middle of all of that), it’s that he’s a tremendously gifted craftsman and technician. Each of the Usher kids’ stories are told precisely and effectively, sowing seeds of their poetic demise early in the episode before paying them off in the end before a smash cut to the title card and credits.
Flanagan is a tremendous adapter of horror stories, but what he’s even better at is a sort of bibliographic quilting — combining pieces, elements, stories, and ideas from several works of an author and assembling them together into a beautiful pastiche. This is exactly what he did when he married Stephen King’s version of The Shining with Stanley Kubrick’s movie in Doctor Sleep, and what he slyly did in The Haunting of Hill House, where other Shirley Jackson allusions made their way into the story. But none of those were half so ambitious as weaving nearly every one of Poe’s short stories, poems, and other writings into one series. Each and every one of the
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polygon.com
02.11.2023 / 17:35
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes finally lets the apes take over the world
It’s the apes’ world and humans are just living in it. After a trilogy of movies that started with 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the apes have finally taken over Earth in the first trailer for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. The fourth movie in the series is set for release on May 24, 2024.
pcgamer.com
02.11.2023 / 16:59
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree development is 'proceeding smoothly' but sorry, there's still no release date
It's been the better part of a year since the Elden Ring: Shadow of the Edrtree expansion was announced, and we've heard nothing of note about it since. The most recent financial report out of FromSoftware parent company Kadokawa brings both good news and bad on that front, which can be summed up in a single brief sentence: It's coming along nicely.
pcgamer.com
01.11.2023 / 17:37
Powered by spite, Baldur's Gate 3 speedrunner cleaves 12 minutes off the world record with dozens of glitches—like trapping a villain in a child's body and knocking them out
If there's one thing I've learned from my time on the internet, it's that you never, ever challenge a speedrunner. They live for challenges. Baldur's Gate 3 is so open-ended it nudges into immersive sim territory—which means that its speedrun tactics have been suitably hare-brained, and runner Mae has been at the centre of them time and time again. Heads up, I'll be getting into some spoiler territory here.
polygon.com
30.10.2023 / 15:03
House MD is the perfect show for memes because it’s already a shitpost
Streaming services constantly try to make their new shows the next big thing, but the power of the nostalgia watch is unrivaled. It’s not just about Friends andThe Office — every so often, an old show just starts to gain traction again, and it seems like everyone across social media is rewatching it at the same time. Columbo, The Sopranos, and Breaking Bad, for instance, have all risen back into the zeitgeist within the last couple of years.
gamesradar.com
30.10.2023 / 11:57
Friends creators share tribute to Matthew Perry: "This is The One Where Our Hearts Are Broken"
The creators of Friends have shared a touching tribute to Matthew Perry, following his death. The 54-year-old was best known for playing Chandler Bing in the long-running sitcom, which ran for 236 episodes.
mmorpg.com
30.10.2023 / 02:51
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen Creative Director Says Using Volunteer Developers 'Not Completely Off The Table' - Updated
During the Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen community Q&A last night, Creative Director Chris «Joppa» Perkins was asked whether the studio would consider bringing on volunteer developers to help speed up the dev process. In answer, Perkins states that it is «something» the team is looking at.
ign.com
24.10.2023 / 15:55
Former Bethesda Design Director Confident The Elder Scrolls 6 Will Keep Skyrim's Levelling System
Bethesda's former design director thinks The Elder Scrolls 6 will keep The Elder Scroll 5: Skyrim's levelling up and progression system.
gamesradar.com
23.10.2023 / 15:13
Divergent writer explains why she's not upset over the last movie in the franchise never being made
Divergent fans may still be salty that the franchise was never fully wrapped on on the big screen, but author Veronica Roth is more than okay with it. In fact, in her opinion, the adapted series "feels complete".
gamesradar.com
22.10.2023 / 09:39
Baldur's Gate 3 player spends hours trying to save the RPG's least death-fearing NPCs, only for them to turn on the player right at the end
One frustrated Baldur's Gate 3 player has taken to the game's subreddit in a flurry of heartache and confusion, having spent several hours saving every last Gondian prisoner there was to save, only to be savagely turned on right as the fight ended. And of course it all switched to infighting before they managed to hit save.
comingsoon.net
21.10.2023 / 14:55
Spawn Reboot Will Be the ‘Blumhouse Version of a Superhero Movie’
Blumhouse founderJason Blum says the horror studio’s upcoming Jamie Foxx-led reboot will stand out from other superhero films.
gamesradar.com
19.10.2023 / 22:53
Matthew Vaughn has spoken to James Gunn about the DCU
Kick-Ass and Kingsman: The Secret Service director Matthew Vaughn says he's been in communication about DC and James Gunn.